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89
SUMMARY OF YEAR'S WORK.
No. of Children on the Roll of Elementary Schools 4,833
Average Attendance, 1930 4,321
No. of Examinations by School Medical Officers 7,806
,, ,, Routine 1,372
,, „ Special and Clinic Inspections,
etc. 6,434
No. Examined by the School Dental Surgeon 5,771
No. found to require treatment 3,068
No. treated by the School Dental Surgeon 2,352
No. of Examinations by School Nurses 12,402
No. of individual Children found unclean 482
No. of Children Examined by the Orthopaedic
Surgeon 182
No. of Children Operated on for Tonsils and Adenoids 120
Introduction.
In spite of Medical Staff changes, the work of the
School Medical Service has continued to exercise its functions
to the fullest capacity. Nevertheless frequent
changes in personnel are not good for the smooth working
of a service which is so largely dependent upon its personal
factor. The more one is associated with the School
Medical Service, so much the more is one impressed with
the importance of the service in the sphere of national welfare.
There is no other service that could replace it with
equal effectiveness.
The aim of the service is not only to remedy the 23 per
cent. of defective children discovered at routine medical
inspection at school, but to make for freedom from illness,
so that the child may receive continuously the education
provided by the Local Authority. Absence from school
through preventable illness must lead to costly and ineffective
education. If we fail to act so as to prevent perpetuation
of defects discovered, we encourage racial deterioration;
it is not a question of "spoon-feeding" a
social class, but one that underlies the very foundation of
the evolution of our people towards true national fitness—